Owen Meredith is a member of the Vauxhall Conservative Association and is a former Conservative candidate for Caerphilly.

The hypocrisy of Labour-run Lambeth council continues this month as a series of new posters appear across the Borough bemoaning cuts in the council’s government grant. At the same time, council leader Cllr Lib Peck states in the £250,000-a-year taxpayer funded Lambeth Talk:

“There’s nothing like the January bills to emphasise the post-Christmas pinch. The pressure on Lambeth Council’s funding is considerably more than a pinch – more like a throttling, with 56 per cent of our main funding cut….”

Cllr Peck goes on to claim that the council is:

“…always looking for new ways to use our resources and assets wisely.”

Well here’s a tip, Lib – cut the propaganda rag and taxpayer-funded political ads.

I’ve written before about the huge waste of cash that is Lambeth Talk, and Lambeth’s repeated claims about the cost of their cuts posters being just £600, ignoring the opportunity costs of Lambeth not selling on their ad space. But a new Freedom of Information request has revealed how Lambeth Labour are taking taxpayers for an even bigger ride.

The council have always claimed that advertising revenues off-set around 25 per cent of the cost to taxpayers of the monthly magazine, and that in recent years that advertising revenue has risen, nearly doubling this year to £54,319.

However, as Lambeth’s response to my FOI shows, a whopping 85 per cent of advertising in Lambeth Talk that is designed to offset the cost to taxpayers is in fact from other public sector bodies and 13 per cent is the council’s own advertising. Private enterprise has no interest in advertising in Lambeth’s unnecessary propaganda rag, so the council have resorted to pushing taxpayers money round in circles in an attempt to cover up their scandalous waste of residents’ money.